


The Alibi

by lacygrey



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Kid Fic, POV Second Person, Thor: The Dark World, Tumblr: imagine-loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 17:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8409844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacygrey/pseuds/lacygrey
Summary: While imprisoned in Asgard's dungeons, Loki has an unexpected visitor, or two.





	

“Ah a visitor! What a lovely surprise.”  He strides over and looks down at you through the prickling force field.

You want to run and hug him from the pure joy to find him alive, but he’s locked away from you and you have your arms full. You had forgotten how attractive he is, but he peers out at you with no sign of recognition.

“So who are you? Who sent you?”

It’s like a slap in the face, like the realisation of your worst fear. After all he put you though. That he’s forgotten you.  He’s standing there proud and beautiful, majestic despite his captivity, like you never counted.

You have no answer for him. All your carefully planned words are trapped down inside you by a great weight.  You haven’t the force to flee and are grateful for the hood of your cloak still hiding your face, and your shame.

It’s still hiding your face! That and the dark of the prison corridor… Could it be that he cannot see you? Carefully transferring the sleeping Elska, still bundled in her travelling clothes, to one arm, you go to lift the hood.

“If that’s escape gear you’ve got there,” he gestures to the bundle. “Then forget it. I’m staying right here.”  He makes a sweeping gesture to the cell as if showing off a new wing of the palace. “It’s a very comfortable dungeon… Fit for a king”

Even his anger is elegant. The searing light of the cell exposes his every detail, while you remain in shadow. His hair, darker than a midwinter night, falling on skin as pale as moonlight, brings back sharp-edged memories. He is the man you knew and yet you know he is not. He looks well, calm and not in the least like a madman who tried to annihilate one planet and enslave another.

You lift your hood.

His eyes flash over you and there’s no doubt now that he recognises you, and that he was totally unprepared.

His gaze dances away a second before meeting yours again in silence. His face blank and unreadable. “My…” he stops himself.

It’s been a year. 

A year since those heady days that led up to the would-be coronation, your first few months at court and that one night you spent with Loki. Meant of course to be the first of many – something unspoken, but mutually understood.

You feel your old responses to him stirring.

Details rise in your mind unbidden. Ones you cannot allow to show on your face.

 

***

 

_How the candlelight turned his skin golden and made his eyes shine, sending deep shadows across the walls of his chamber.  Your fingers laced together with his, pressed into soft sheets. His breath cooling your sweat-drenched skin. His voice so close to your ear it’s like it was in your head:  “You’re mine. You can tell anyone, everyone, Mother, Father… that you were here tonight. That’s where I want you from now on.  Will you stay?”_

_“Always.”_

_It had been so perfect that you didn’t want to lose the moment, didn’t want to fall asleep. But the murmur of his sleeping breaths drew you down to join him. Then the morning with its new colours painting him in yet another way, strewn in dreams as you watched him. A beautiful beginning…_

 

_***_

 

His face is still expressionless in the prison’s harsh light and you wonder if he too is remembering.

Elska choses that moment to wake and make a load gurgle. Loki’s eyes, which were wandering over you, go wide and finally settle on her.  Frigga has clearly told him nothing. But wasn’t that why you came here today?  You wanted it to be you.

“Something you didn’t tell me?” he says. It’s not an accusation and yet you feel a wave of cold apprehension. He’s still trying to maintain his confident exterior –even with you.

His eyes stay fixed on the bundle of clothes hiding Elska. He can’t see her yet.

”You were dead.” You mimic his matter-of-fact tone.  He doesn’t reply, but crosses his arms and takes a step back.  He knows. Of course he knows. Or at least he suspects…

“There’s something _you_ didn’t tell _me,_ ” you say and then Elska, with perfect timing, reaches out a chubby, very blue, arm.  You hear him gasp and, seeing how he stares, you turn Elska toward him.  That’s when she starts to cry, but her displeasure does nothing to deter him, the anger is hers alone.

“How?”

 Elska bawls. She looks terrible when she’s upset. All the little lines on her face and arms stand out.  Loki just looks on, transfixed. You cuddle her but have to raise your voice.

“You know very well,” you half laugh.

“But it was only once.” Your anger rises but you swallow it down. Surely he didn’t mean that to hurt as much as it did. 

“Several times as I remember.” You dare.  He reddens visibly, you feel yourself do the same. The ice shatters.  Finally, you got to him.

Some of the other inmates mutter at you to keep it down. To ‘shut that kid up’.  Others are glued to the scene and press themselves to the windows of their cells to get a better look.

“She’s only hungry. I’ll feed her. ”   

So you sit in the alcove made by the window of his cell, with your back to Loki and Elska on your knees.  You lean back on the force field.  He’s just the other side, looking at her over your shoulder.

He can’t touch you but his nearness is almost tangible. You imagine it so keenly it’s like you feel it.

The motley crew in the cell opposite leer at you as you get yourself comfortable to breastfeed; you concentrate on Elska and your own little world.

 “Doesn’t that hurt you?” It’s his first words of concern for you.  Or is it mischief. You can’t tell.

“No.” It’s never been anything but a moment of pure togetherness with Elska. “I think it’s because she’s mine.”

“And when you…”?  He must mean the birth. 

”Of course it did. “Such stupid questions. “Your mother found me a hiding place. She tried to prepare me, found a midwife who would know what to do.” You look up. He has both hands pressed to the force field, his face between them as close as he can get.

“Mother didn’t tell me.”

“I hardly gave her a chance.  I had to come right away. She doesn’t know I’m here. But she’s happy and she helped me.  She stayed with me when Elska came…I thought I was dying. I thought I was giving birth to a monster.” He flinches.

You turn back to Elska and your voice softens “And she is a real monster, but the most wonderful kind.” you smile at her.

You stay looking into her contented face as she’s happily feeding and it’s only when you glance up again that you see how he’s frowning at her, apprehensive and curious.  And he’s every reason. As she feeds she changes color from blue to pink.  Then back to blue.

“She’ll have to learn to stop doing that or she won’t be safe anywhere.”  He says it quietly, warmly even, but sad.

“You don’t know, I think it’s going to be okay.” you say. “It might be the very opposite. I mean it could be good for her.  She might be just the right person to finally forge peace between the worlds.” He doesn’t reply. You gently lift Elska now and tap her on the back to get her to burp. “With her royal heritage, she could be the new hope…”

“ENOUGH!” You jump at Loki’s cry, angry and ragged like it just broke out from a prison within him.  “You cannot make her be these things,” he shouts, his voice cracking. The transformation is terrifying. You hold Elska close to you. Now can see why people say he’s insane.

“You cannot decide such things for her.”  His features are taut, like he’s ready to lash out. But then Elska gives a deep satisfied belch and there’s a round of laughter from other prisoners looking on.

Loki turns his fiery look away from you and glares at them.

Elska giggles and Loki stalls, wide-eyed and suddenly at a loss.

You know very well why she does that. She understands nothing, but wants him to smile at her.

He has no idea what to do but it’s like he’s forgotten everything else. He can’t take his eyes off her.

To you he says “Promise me you won’t try to use her that way.”

You could never have imagined this ferocious devotion to a child whose existence he’d been unaware of.  If you had any doubts that you could still love him he has just erased them.

“I promise.”

 “Keep her safe. Don’t let Odin near her. Those mistakes should never be repeated.” Loki’s virtually shaking.  It’s like he suddenly became aware of his own impuissance, the thickness of the rock above him separating him from the world. 

He rises. Pulls himself, as though with great effort, away from the window and starts to pace. You can see him breathing deeply trying to fold away the hurt behind the outburst. You feel guilt for somehow bringing him pain when you hoped you were bringing him joy.

Finally, after having inspected each of the cell’s meagre but tasteful furnishings, he comes back to you.

“My lady.”

The words make you catch your breath.

It’s what he’d called you from the day you first met. A name he’d continued to use in all circumstances and which changed its meaning with time.

“Whatever you thought of me and whoever I was for you.  I am that person no longer.”

This you will never wholly believe.

 _“_ Then why do you still call me so?”

He moves from the cell window and starts pacing again. Out here you’re safe from the ‘tyrant’, the ‘madman’, the ‘murderer’. But you feel hollow with the need to touch him.

And the person _you_ were before? Is she gone too? Or is she just in hiding?

 

***

 

_It seems so long ago now that you stood on the wreckage of the bifrost, blown by the winds from the stars, rainbow colors fliting beneath your feet, and tried to find an answer to the feeling you were left with._

_“Can you see him out there?”  You would have been too scared to go and see Heimdall if you had not been more terrified for Loki. ”I know he’s alive.” you said, “I can feel it inside me.”_

_But Heimdall just looked and looked into the blue beyond._

_Finally he said, “I cannot see Loki. Even if he is alive he has long learnt how to evade me.”_

_“But I can feel him.”_

_Then Heimdall turned his amber gaze away from the universe and onto you._

_“What you feel is another life that is much closer.”_

_He was silent and his eyes clouded over once more. The truth washed over you like vertigo from the bridge.  When you didn’t move, he said: “You would do well to seek counsel from the queen.” And you knew he would keep the secret._

 

_***_

 

_“You’re Loki’s friend,” said Frigga. “We saw so much of you… but for such a short time…”_

_You had wanted so much to show your empathy, but it was like your presence amplified Loki’s absence._

_Then Frigga smiled a sad smile and did something you would never have believed.  She took you in her arms and you both let yourselves cry on each other. You told her your story, watching a kaleidoscope of emotions pass over her face. She looked for an instant as though she would burst into tears again but instead she seemed to light up._

_“It’s wonderful. I never thought… Incredible.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Aesir children can only be conceived from true love. That is why we are so few.”_

_“I know.”  You couldn’t help the pride in your voice despite the tragic irony.  To have had something so rare and have lost it so soon._

_But then Frigga added, “I do not know how these things are on Jotunheim.”_

_“Why should I care how frost giants make babies?” you said and laughed. But the queen’s face stayed serious._

_“Child, there are some things few people know about my son Loki…. “_

 

***

 

“What if mother also meant to hide her from me?”  Loki has settled opposite you on the other side of the window, gazing at Elska as you bounce her and she tugs on your hair.

“It can’t be that.”

“ _I_ would have hidden her from me - I tried to destroy Jotunheim, her planet, her people. “ He does not say _my_.

As he looks at Elska, his fingers make the slightest movements. He wants to touch.

And you wonder, if this were an official visit, whether he would be allowed.  Whether he could hold Elska or whether such privileges are denied war criminals.

“How did you get in here anyway?” he asks.  

“You taught me a thing or two about magic and locks.”  You grin. ~~~~

He takes on a certain smugness hearing that, another echo of his past self.

 “Shame we can’t fix this one.” The force field crackles as he runs a finger down it, then reaches toward you.

You mirror his movement until your hands touch the barrier at the same place. It pulses between you. The hairs stand up on the backs of your hands even though you are only imagining. It’s not quite being together.

“I never thought you would use your magic for such malicious things.”

You’ve had plenty of time to think it through and realise what happened back on the night all the chaos started.  Loki let the enemies into the treasure vault while you were sleeping.

The person you were back then would have been devastated at his deception, but the one you are today has other priorities. What’s come since has blown it all away to ancient history.

You cannot drag that out now, any more than you can pluck that past Loki, the one of the soft smiles and flickering candlelight out of this one. 

“I’m not all malice.”  There’s an invitation there, a gleam of something magnificent, ridiculous as it might seem, him in prison and you in hiding.

He’ll never talk his way out of all the things he’s done.  But part of your weakness is that you’d so love to see him try.

There’s a commotion at the end of the gallery, an explosion and painful static from a force field giving way. There come cries and heavy sounds of armed and armoured soldiers.  There’s somebody coming, several somebodies, and it’s not the guards with the rations.

“Go!”

There’s no time to ask ‘Can I come back?’ ‘How will we see each other?’ You wrap Elska and throw your hood up over your head.

“My lady.” he says, as you’re heading away and the word shiver up your spine.

“Take care”.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Elska: Love
> 
> Previously posted to [Imagine Loki](http://imagine-loki.tumblr.com/) at Tumblr under the title 'Baby Blue'.
> 
> Original prompt: Imagine finding out you’re pregnant after Loki has fallen off of the Bifrost. Out of fear of retaliation from Odin, you only confide in Frigga, who helps you to escape the palace and have the baby in secret. When Loki is the cells of Asgard, you sneak in and introduce your daughter to him.


End file.
